It's time for schools to take a hard look at tablets

Aug. 1, 2013

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[ EDITOR ]

Within a few weeks, children will be back in classrooms across the Upstate. Many kids are sad to bid farewell to summer, but I’ll bet many parents can’t wait for the first bell of school to ring.

Today’s classrooms are a far cry from those I attended. I don’t actually know of any schools with bells. These days, buzzers or sounds piped through speakers keep kids on schedule. Chalkboards have been replaced with whiteboards. Overhead projectors have given way to video screens. Computers are in most classrooms.

Yet textbooks, for most students, are in the same form they were for you and me — heavy, hardbound, ink-on-paper books. Personally, I am a fan of printed stuff. I like the smell of ink. I enjoy the tactile feel of paper. But when you consider the cost— by one report, anywhere from $30 to more than $100 for a single elementary school textbook — and the almost instant obsolescence, I can’t help but wonder when classrooms will truly make the jump to tablets.

According to the California Performance Review, an initiative by the state of California to create the “first 21st century government in America,” digital textbooks have many benefits.

“Digital textbooks can cut costs and streamline note taking,” the report says. “They also allow professors to link classroom notes to online materials for more discussion and easily update items as needed. Digital textbooks can be updated frequently; for example, history books can include information on what happened in the Legislature two weeks ago.”

All this sounds great, but what really caught my attention was this, from the same report: “Digital textbooks can save school systems money. Textbooks are easily damaged, lost and quickly outdated.”

Many schools across the country are switching to tablets — often Apple’s iPad — with great success. Schools in New York City and Chicago have rolled them out, and some classrooms in California and Virginia have completely swapped traditional textbooks for iPads.

At St. Paul Elementary in Minidoka County, Idaho, the iPad has reduced paper copies by 20,000 per month. Principal Colleen Johnson told AppleInsider that the tablets have replaced almost every worksheet the school used to give students.

If tablets can save school districts money while at the same time offer a better learning experience for our kids, it’s time to get moving.

A former boss of mine used to tell me you had to walk before you can run. She’s right. The move from textbooks to tablets won’t happen overnight.